25 Vintage Botanical Illustrations: Free Printable Art

First of all, thank you all for all your sweet comments on our summer home tour! So, it turns out our front porch feels welcoming to more than just friends and family. This past week, we discovered that a family of birds made their home in our hanging ferns on the porch. It’s been a little challenging keeping the ferns watered without disturbing our tiny guests, but I’m determined to keep both the baby birds and the ferns healthy and alive.

As promised in the summer home tour, I’m sharing 25 free printable vintage botanical illustrations that I used to add color and character over the fireplace mantle.

There’s just something about the casual elegance of vintage botanical prints that I’ve been drawn to since I was in my early twenties.

As soon as I graduated college, I moved out of my parents house and rented a small duplex in the historic district near the one of the colleges.

Not having much money, I shopped thrift stores and consignment shops to decorate my new place. One of the first things I bought was a set of framed vintage botanical prints I found at the Goodwill for $20. The prints were yellowed from time and the frames were antique gold (which wasn’t in style at the time) but I felt like I hit the jackpot. To this day, I haven’t been able to let them go and still have them hanging in my hallway upstairs.

Since then, it’s much easier to find botanical illustrations on the internet. There are hundreds of free public domain websites that allow you to download prints, but I found that the New York Public Library was the easiest to navigate and find the prints I was looking for.

All the prints I used were are by the renowned painter and botanist, Pierre-Joseph Redouté, from his book Les Liliacées. Redouté was the official court artist of Queen Marie Antoinette.

Instead of you having to scroll through all 495 images from the book, I selected 25 images for you to download as a PDF.

Once you get to the PDF, you can either download all the images or print directly from your computer. Instead of printing all the images, you can chose which page you’d like to print. Since my laser printer only prints in black, I had the images printed on medium weight matte paper at my local Kinkos.

If you want to browse all the images on the NYPL website from Redouté’s Les Liliacées, click this link. Then, you can select and download the image quality you prefer.

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Instead of framing the botanicals, I was inspired by this picture to layer and tape the photos casually on the space above my mantle.

[…] says summer quite like flowers, right? So, above the mantle in the master bedroom, I placed an arrangement of free botanical printables.I love being able to keep fresh flowers or greenery on display, so I made a farmhouse style milk […]

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Welcome! We’re a couple that found out on the 1st date that we both loved Fixer Upper, remodeling houses and building things. She’s passionate about getting the look on a budget. He’s passionate about making any remodeling idea she come’s up with a reality. As a team, we’re here to prove to you that you can make your home simply beautiful on a budget. Tricia & Jason

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welcome! we're tricia & jason

We’re a couple that found out on the 1st date that we both loved Fixer Upper, remodeling houses and building things. She’s passionate about getting the look on a budget. He’s passionate about making any remodeling idea she come’s up with a reality. As a team, we’re here to prove to you that having a cozy, well-designed home doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Tricia & Jason